shards of grey in a black and white world
by lost frequencies
Summary: A collection of vignettes centred on the one with the inkblot mask.


**shards of grey in a black and white world**

by lost frequencies.

_"Some of us have always lived on edge, Daniel. It is possible to survive there if you observe rules; just hang on by fingernails and never look down." — Rorschach_

**.*.*.*.**

**_i. face in the mirror_**

To his dismay, everything he does, sees, or touches, reminds him of women: from his past, his job, Kitty Genovese and now the remains of her dress embracing his skin. The feeling is almost unsettling_—_like a woman's touch. But unlike a woman's touch, he feels assured by it. Inspired.

He runs his fingers across the fabric and its shifting viscous blots. They dance beneath the warmth of his touch, forming various patterns that reflect the emotions he's kept suppressed for so long.

He imagines how fascinating it must look, if it were a face.

A face he could bear to look at in the mirror.

* * *

**_ii. gentle brutality_**

"When we first met back in '65, Rorschach forced me into working on a case with him."

Hollis Mason raised a questioning brow at Dreiberg. "_Forced_?" He asked, as he leaned forward with elbows resting over a newspaper on his already cluttered desk.

"I was apprehensive about teaming up at first," Dreiberg continued, while sitting slumped in his chair across Mason. "But there was something about him that was reassuring, you know. Like there's some kind of _gentleness_ in his brutality." He took another sip from his bottle and breathed out a chuckle. "I don't even know what that means."

Drunk and tired, they laughed. Quietly.

Mason's eyes wrinkled in a smile. "I think what you're _really_ trying to say is that you missed working with your partner."

In 1982, Dreiberg still had nothing to look forward to in his life except on Saturdays when he would spend his nights drinking with his old friend and mentor. "I'm not even sure if we were ever partners, Hollis. But it would have been nice if he were to keep in touch every once in awhile."

He sighed.

"It's been five years anyway..."

* * *

**_iii. charlie_**

A battered form of a child dressed in an oversized t-shirt stood quietly at the door of his mother's room, enticed by the smell of food.

She turned to look at him from the dresser where she was seated at, looking radiant in her summer frock but no amount of powder could conceal the purple marks on her neck.

"Eat your breakfast before it gets cold."

The sun shone through an open window. Little Kovacs smiled as he looked at her through squinted eyes. He could tell his mother was in a good mood.

Kovacs hopped into the bed that his mother shared with her clients almost every evening to pick on the plateful of scrambled eggs and fried bacon. He took his time to savour it, as though he didn't want her to know how hungry he was.

She sat with her son, running her fingers through his unkempt hair and down the side of his face to gently smoothen out the fresh bruises on his skin. "Look at you," she said, cupping his face and wiping off the dried blood from the corner of his mouth with her thumb. "You have your father's eyes."

Kovacs gazed innocently into hers. "W-what is his name, Mommy?"

Her faint smile withered into a condescending sneer. She withdrew her hands from him and looked away.

"Charlie," his mother said, choking back her grief.

The scent of her perfume lingered on even after she had walked out of the room.

* * *

**_iv. a pair of nice legs_**

"Cut her some slack, man," Nite Owl attempted to reason with his partner. "She did the best she could."

"I don't need your pity," Silk Spectre retorted defensively before stepping closer towards Rorschach. "Especially not from some misogynist _bastard_ who thinks he's too good to be working with—"

Rorschach grabbed the young woman by the neck and slowly lifted her off the ground. She struggled to breathe within his constricting grasp, her bulging eyes staring vindictively into the symmetry of his mask.

"That's enough!" Nite Owl forced the brute vigilante to release her by locking a strong arm around his neck.

The woman eventually fell to her knees, gasping violently to fill her starved lungs for air. "You crazy son of a bitch!" she cried out in between breaths.

Both men started jostling each other towards the back of the Owlship. "Are you out of your mind?" shouted the one in the owl suit. "You almost killed her!"

"Don't you see, Daniel? Her incompetence is keeping us from accomplishing our missions!"

"No! You are, Rorschach." Nite Owl seized his partner by the shoulders. "You're the one who's been keeping us from working as a team."

* * *

**_v. the last dance_**

"May I have this dance?"

It seemed a little awkward coming from someone like him but she fell for his charm nevertheless. The girl smiled at him, took his outstretched hand and was led to join the gathering of slow dancing couples in the centre of a gym hall.

Volunteers and social workers alike believed it was a good idea to hold a promenade for the youth of Charlton Home. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves—especially Kovacs who was greatly improving on his social interaction skills. His teachers looked on proudly, thinking this would be a notable thing to include in his testimonial.

He was sixteen.

The sooner he left Charlton, the better, he thought. Nothing was more important to a young man than gaining freedom in his life.

He wrapped his arms gently around the waist of her satin gown and coaxed her to rest her head against his right shoulder. He wasn't used to sharing his personal space with anyone, let alone with her. She was annoyingly exquisite. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned. But Kovacs would rather be admiring the back of her head than those doe-shaped eyes.

He felt the warmth of embarrassment creeping up his neck and on the apples of his cheeks.

It was the first and the last time he would ever fall in love.

* * *

**_vi. writing is on the wall_**

The Knot Tops thought they could exact "justice" against the presumably defenseless vigilante.

Despite being the only one left standing since the Keene Act was passed, he latched on to his duty like a parasite feeding on the blood of a diseased animal, gradually contaminating him with rage and the lust for retribution. Still they kept underestimating his fighting prowess as they sought every opportunity to avenge fallen members of their clan. He glided past them, splitting the horde of gangsters into two while throwing punches with elbows and fists like a fighter possessed by a thousand vengeful spirits. Turning their own weapons against them, he slashed throats with broken bottles, blinded eyes with knives and crushed windpipes with rusty chains.

By the time their bodies fell dead on his feet, it was already too late to remember who he was...

_(Justice incarnate. In its most brutal, maniacal form.)_

As soon as he heard running footsteps approaching, he fired a line from his grappling gun towards a building and soared into hiding. Two police officers came running into the alley minutes after an anonymous phone call was made. They scanned the premise with their flashlights before gazing up at the buildings. Then a streak of lightning flashed in the darkness of the sky, revealing a silhouetted form peering over the edge of the rooftop, the sound of thunder not far behind.

"You're not getting away with this, Rorschach!" one of them shouted as they stood helplessly in the downpour with dead bodies of the wayward littering the ground, sprawled in a mess of blood and rain puddle. The brick wall of the alley continued to bleed drips of black paint from an unfinished graffiti.

_Who Watches The Watchmen, _it meant to ask.

A recurring question no one dared to find a definite answer to.


End file.
